Encuentro – Struggles for Life in the Global Storm

Saludos compañeros, compañeras, compañeroas, compañeres, join us for our next encuentro in Albuquerque, New Mexico on September 23rd and 24th!

Struggles for life in the global storm brings together communities, organizations, and collectives in the fight for life to build networks of autonomy across the continent. The global storm reminds us about the intimate connections that people who struggle have across the globe and hemisphere, from the caracoles in Chiapas, to the communities part of the Congresso Nacional Indigena, to the rebellious collectives in the United States. The ongoing destruction of the planet and the dehumanization of people on this continent urges us to build bridges and networks of autonomy that are not mediated by colonial, capitalist, and heteropatriarchal governing structures and nation states. The long struggle has over 500 years of knowledge and wisdom. Communities in struggles across the hemisphere have actively resisted, imagined, and practiced other forms of living, relating, and existing. In this gathering, we invite all of those in struggle seeking to learn about local and global conditions with the purpose of strengthening resistant networks across Mexico and the United States. We invite you to Albuquerque, New Mexico on September 23rd and 24th to learn about the local histories and to build community based networks of resistance. In this gathering, we center three points of engagement: the global storm, resisting projects of death and building autonomies, and struggling with the Zapatistas and Congresso Nacional Indigena.

Register using this link.

If you are interested in hosting a presentation, platica, or workshop click on this link.

Introducing our new journal: Grietas

Grietas: A Journal of Zapatista Thought and Horizons is our offering of respect, solidarity, and encounter to those taking paths towards autonomy and away from the capitalist hydra, each from our own geographies, with our own calendars, in our own ways.

This work is an all-volunteer effort in the hopes that we’ll get to know you and your paths, and as an invitation for all struggles from below and to the left to engage with us and one another.

In our first issue, “Autonomy From Below and to the Left in the U.S.”, we take up the topic of autonomy in the United States from a variety of perspectives, each reflecting on past and current struggles for liberation while offering glimpses of possible autonomous futures inspired by Zapatismo and the seven principles of leading by obeying.

We also share reportbacks of projects we’ve accompanied the Zapatistas and the CNI-CIG on, as well as insights on Zapatista praxis, including education, women’s rights, and their journey across rebellious Europe in the latter half of 2021.

A Journal of Zapatista Thought and Horizons
A Journal of Zapatista Thought and Horizons
Our Word

Our Word

November 15, 2023: Free Palestine– Statement of Solidarity

November 11, 2023: Letter of recognition and solidarity with the compañeras and compañeros Wixáricas, Tepehuanas and Tepecanas of San Lorenzo de Azqueltán

October 24, 2023: Open Letter

July 26, 2022: Statement of Solidarity with BAEZLN, FrayBa, and the BriCO

June 28, 2022: Defend the Atlanta Forest

May 28, 2022: A solidarity statement by Sexta Grietas del Norte with Abahlali baseMjondolo in Durban, South Africa

July 23, 2021: SUPPORTING THE STRUGGLE AGAINST LINE 3! A SOLIDARITY STATEMENT BY SEXTA GRIETAS DEL NORTE

May 17, 2021: Statement in solidarity with the Wixáritari and Tepehuano Autonomous Community of San Lorenzo de Azqueltán, Jalisco, Mexico. Campaign for Justice and Territory 

January 03, 2021: EZLN: 27 Years of Rebellion and Resistance

December 05, 2020: Statement of Solidarity with the Water and Land Defenders and against the Morelos Integral Project in Mexico

November 2020: Greetings to Azqueltan on Its 7th Anniversary of Being an Autonomous Community

October 21, 2020: Declaration of Solidarity with the Occupation of INPI on October 12th, 2020

August 31, 2020: Statement of Solidarity with the Zapatistas and Indigenous Communities of Chiapas

August 8, 2020: The Word of Sexta Grietas del Norte for CNI Webinar on August 8, 2020

April 15, 2020: Statement of Solidarity with Azqueltán

April 15, 2020: Statement of Solidarity with the Struggle against the Maya Train, a Megaproject of Death

February 11, 2020: Communiqué from the Sexta Grietas del Norte network in solidarity with the call: Days of Action in Defense of Territory and Mother Earth “We are all Samir”

Our Walk

We regularly translate the communiques of the National Indigenous Congress in Mexico from Spanish to English, which you can find in our Translating page.

We also organize in-person and online encounters to find more of each other and share analyses and views from our various geographies and calendars on how we can effectively link up struggles. Please visit our Encountering page for more.

Who We Are

Who We Are

Sexta Grietas del Norte is a network of organizations, individuals, collectives, formations that work toward building autonomy in the Other United States. We move collectively in resistance and rebellion to build collective self-organization and anti-capitalist struggle against the hierarchical structures of state power and the capitalist civilization of death.

Our name Sexta, which is Spanish for “Sixth,” refers to the Zapatistas’ Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle of 2006, which summons all of us who wish to create a very different kind of world, one where many worlds fit.

Grietas is Spanish for “cracks” and refers to all our small but mighty resistances against the structures, the walls of the dominant world. Our many and persistent cracks break down the walls that divide us, seek to conquer and control us.

We are committed to the fight for the defense and the formation of a dignified life, which includes resisting the oppressive racial and patriarchal hierarchies and acting outside the established system of political parties.

We organize to build a broad front of autonomous and community struggles in the geography called the United States, each in our own geographies, with our own calendars, in our own ways.

Our network was formed in response to the EZLN campaign “The Walls of Capital, The Cracks of the Left.” At that meeting, we promised to bring Zapatista coffee to the north of the wall to help migrant and refugee relatives. From there our collective organization was born and the need to create a more concrete network in struggle and accompaniment with the compas of the EZLN and the CNI-CIG.

Our objectives are to mutually support our struggles and solidarity with our compas from the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, and the National Indigenous Congress, the Indigenous Governing Council, and the Sixth in Mexico and everywhere.

We join with all the peoples who struggle to create and preserve dignified and sustainable ways of life, especially the Indigenous peoples who struggle to preserve their lives, history, identity, their ancestral lands, ways of being, and cosmovisions, and to protect Mother Earth.

All of us are adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle and follow the seven organizational principles of “leading by obeying” offered by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) of Mexico to us all:

To obey, not command
To represent, not supplant
To serve others, not serve oneself
To convince, not defeat
To work from below, not go above
To propose, not impose
To build, not destroy


Sexta Coffee Flyer 1
Sexta Coffee Flyer 2
Contact Us

Contact Us